


Bend Until It Breaks

by queenofwrecksandruins



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-01 00:12:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6493345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofwrecksandruins/pseuds/queenofwrecksandruins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek and Stiles have a heated argument. They're not sure they will be okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta´d by a lot of people, and I love them all!

_“Please leave a message after the beep.” *Beep*_

_“Derek, man, it’s Scott, which you probably already heard, but man, you have to pick up, you have got to pick up, it’s…it’s not good man, it’s Stiles, he…I don’t know man, god, why won’t you pick up your phone, please, get here as quickly as you can!”_

_*****_

 

“You have got to be kidding me”, mumbled Derek to himself. He was currently staring at his apartment, which was a mess. Not his fault, no, Stiles’ fault.

 

“Stiles!”

 

He heard a clatter coming from the kitchen. ‘Probably a plate carelessly thrown in the sink’, he thought. This is it, this has to stop.

 

As Stiles rounded the corner from the kitchen, Derek put on his best glare.

 

“What’s up, Sourwolf? I didn’t even hear you come back. I just finished eating, if I had known you were going to be here as well I would have waited.” Stiles kept chattering on, seemingly unaware of the glare that Derek was sending his way.

 

“Stiles”, Derek said calmly, “what is all of this?”

 

“All of what?” Stiles looked up, looking at the mess he had made. “Oh, that, pff, that’s just stuff I might need for my project, you know.”

 

“You might need your sneakers for your project?” Derek asked, a little less calm this time.

 

“Well, no, but I will clean that up in a sec, no worries.”

 

“Stiles, we talked about this, you really need to clean up after yourself,” Derek said, raising his voice more and more as the discussion went on.

 

“I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out of this”, Stiles sighed, clearly getting annoyed as well. “It’s not like I never had to clean this place up after you bled all over the floor and the couch,” he said with some venom in his voice.

 

Ouch. Even though it had been months since the last baddie came to Beacon Hills, that one still stung. Derek’s brain was trying to make him stop, stop before he said something he’d regret, hurt himself, hurt Stiles.

 

“I just don’t feel like cleaning up after you like a goddamn baby-sitter, Stiles”, he shouted, and, what? No, abort, he didn’t mean to say that, take it back before it’s…

 

Too late. Stiles head shot up, eyes wide, looking at Derek like he didn’t really believe what he’d just heard.

 

“What?”

 

“I think you heard me just fine, Stiles, I’m not your goddamn baby-sitter and I’m tired of you behaving like a child.”

 

“No no, I heard you just fine the first time”, Stiles spat at him, “I was just trying to give you a chance to take that back.”

 

“Why would I take it back when it’s the truth?” Stupid brain, shut up, make it stop.

 

Stiles now looked plain hurt. His eyes widened, and Derek saw what must be the beginning of tears.

 

“So, that’s it then, I’m just a stupid child?” he hissed at Derek. “I can’t believe you are still holding my age against me!”

 

“It’s kind of hard to ignore when you constantly behave like an infant and have quirks that remind me of a toddler.” What? No, he didn’t mean that, Derek loved Stiles’ quirks.

 

“If I’m that much of a burden, why don’t you tell me to leave then?” Tears where now streaming down Stiles’ face.

 

Derek just glared at Stiles. Stiles knew Derek didn’t want him to leave, right? This was just frustration, pent up frustration.

 

Stiles clearly wasn’t finished with this fight yet. “You and I should have both seen this coming though, right? I mean, everything is so freaking hard for you, isn’t it? With your psycho exes, and your lost Alpha powers, and your dead family…”

 

The room suddenly turned very silent. The weight of what Stiles had just set hit Derek like a wall.

 

“Derek, I..shit…I’m…”

 

“Get out.”

 

“What?” Stiles whispered, clearly crying harder now.

 

“Get. Out.”

 

“Derek, I didn’t mean to…”

 

“GET OUT!”

 

Stiles jumped slightly at the loudness of Derek’s voice. His eyes, red-rimmed from crying, looked pleadingly at Derek. When he saw that Derek wasn’t going to change his mind, he slowly moved towards his sneakers, picking them up with shaking hands. He didn’t even put them on, just went straight past Derek, grabbed his keys and his phone and went outside.

 

Derek could hear Stiles get in his car, still without his shoes on. After half a minute, he could hear Stiles gasping for breath. The small heaved sobs were now coming. After a minute of gasping and crying and sobbing, Derek heard Stiles fumble with the keys, heard the engine roar to life, and slowly heard Stiles drive away.

 

Derek released a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding. They would be fine. He just needed time to breathe. Stiles just needed time to cool off. They would be fine.

 

Derek glared at the mess some more, and then sighed and went to see what damage Stiles had done in the kitchen. It was exactly what he expected; a plate carelessly thrown in the sink, every ingredient for Stiles sandwich still on display, the door of the fridge not even properly closed.

 

Derek sighed. He definitely needed to cool off now. He went upstairs to take a shower. Just as he was about to go to the bathroom, his phone went off. A loud and obnoxious song that Derek hadn’t picked in the first place, started playing. Stiles’ ringtone. “No, he can speak to my voicemail for now”, Derek grumbled to himself, and got in the shower.

 

***** 

 

_“Please leave a message after the beep.” *Beep*_

_“Derek, man, it’s Scott, which you probably already heard, but man, you have to pick up, you have got to pick up, it’s…it’s not good man, it’s Stiles, he…I don’t know man, god, why won’t you pick up your phone, please, get here as quickly as you can!”_

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [joyfuljaybird ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/joyfuljaybird/pseuds/joyfuljaybird) for beta-reading it! <3

Derek stared at the wall in front of him. He was still processing what he had just heard.

 

_“Derek, man, it’s Scott, which you probably already heard, but man, you have to pick up, you have got to pick up, it’s…it’s not good man, it’s Stiles, he…I don’t know man, god, why won’t you pick up your phone, please, get here as quickly as you can!”_

It was now a full day after their big argument. A full day of Stiles being…being what exactly? Derek didn’t know and he didn’t have the guts to call Scott. What would he do if it was bad? Would he cry? Give up? Derek wasn’t sure. The only thing he knew for sure was that he hadn’t completely forgiven Stiles for bringing up the fire.

 

_“_ _everything is so freaking hard for you, isn’t it?” … “and your dead family.”_

 

Derek heard a small crack coming from his hand. He looked down and saw that he was still holding his phone, slowly crushing it. He let go of the device and heard it drop to the floor.

 

‘Breathe in, breathe out’, he thought to himself.

 

After a few minutes of simply breathing, he stood up. He had to go, see how Stiles was doing, wherever he was. Which meant he has to call Scott.

 

The phone rang a few times before it was answered. Derek heard some shuffling and mumbling on the other side. Then Scott’s voice came through his speaker. “Derek.” It sounded short and clipped and Derek knew he pissed Scott of by not calling him back earlier.

 

“Scott. What is going on with Stiles?”

 

“Oh, now you want to know? Good to know you still care enough to ask for Stiles, it only took you a day.”

 

Derek sighed. “Look, I’m very sorry, Stiles and I had a fight, just tell me what’s going on so that I can ta….”

 

“Wait, what?” Scott asked, clearly surprised. Derek heard some shuffling again, like a hand was covering the speaker on Scott’s phone. Then, he heard Scott ask unclearly “Stiles, when did you two have a fight?” He heard someone, probably Stiles, mumble something, but he was unable to hear what Stiles was saying.

 

“Scott”, Derek growled through the phone, “where are you?”

 

Derek heard some more shuffling. “The hospital, but Derek, I don’t think it’s…”

 

Derek didn’t hear anything after that. The hospital. Stiles was in the hospital.

 

Derek hung up the phone and grabbed his jacket and car keys.

 

***** 

 

When Derek entered the hallway in the hospital, Scott was already waiting there for him.

 

“Look man, I don’t think this is a good idea, Stiles is kind of…” Scott stopped talking when he saw that Derek was glaring at him. He sighed. “Fine, go, I tried to stop you, remember that.” Scott pointed at a door.

 

Derek walked towards the door and knocked. He heard someone mumbling on the inside, took this as a sign he could go in, and entered. Before he could close the door, he was met with a pillow in his face.

 

“A whole day?!” Stiles shrieked. “You waited a whole day before you even attempted to make sure I was okay?!”

 

Stiles grabbed a hospital-pudding and threw it at Derek, a process that clearly caused him pain, if the way he winced was anything to go by.

 

“Stiles, just stop. I didn’t check my voicemail until today, that’s the only reason I didn’t respond earlier. What happened?”

 

“I got hurt and my _boyfriend_ waited a whole day to make sure I was okay, that’s what happened.” Stiles emphasised the word ‘boyfriend’.

 

“I was pissed, Stiles, okay, still am actually, so why don’t you stop these childish games and tell me what the hell happened.”

 

“Oh, here we go again with the age-thing. It’s really bothering you, isn’t it?”

 

“Stiles, just shut up already.”

 

“No, you know what, I’m done pretending that it doesn’t hurt that you think of yourself as my babysitter instead of my boyfriend.”

 

Derek sighed.

 

“I think you need to go.”

 

“Go? As in ‘go now’, or ‘go not be with you’?”

 

“Whatever asshole, I’m going to do immature things anyway, wouldn’t want to drag you down, now would I?” Stiles said the last part with a huff.

 

“Fine.”

 

“Good.”

 

Derek turned around and walked out the door, closing it behind him. He saw Scott standing a few feet away from the door, pretending he hadn’t heard their whole fight. Derek started walking towards the lift, passing Scott in the process.

 

He stopped when he felt a hand on his arm.

 

“It wasn’t his fault, I mean, I guess it was, if he went driving after you two had a fight, but I mean, I think he was in a lot of pain man, and crying really hard if he didn’t see that tree coming.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [ joyfuljaybird ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/joyfuljaybird) for proofreading!

The next week was…silent. Too quiet. No one buzzing around the loft, telling him he should stop being a ‘grumpy Sourwolf’. Just silence.

 

At first, the silence was glorious. Then, it became slightly irritating. After a week, the silence was there, always there, being unavoidable and silent.

 

So Derek did what he did best. He ignored the silence, and instead focussed on other things, such as working out, finishing the Bestiary. It almost felt normal.

 

Derek, however, was aware of other things going on. Such as the rest of the pack slowly speaking less with him about things they would normally talk about; about Stiles. Every single conversation seemed forced and it slowly started to get to Derek.

 

“So, do you think we will have any more trouble with bad guys soon…?” Scott asked awkwardly.

 

They were halfway through a very stilted conversation, and Derek was fed up.

 

“Please stop”, Derek grunted.

 

“Please st..wait, what? Stop…what exactly?” Scott asked, feigning ignorance.

 

Derek sighed. “Please don’t do that, this tiptoeing thing, not talking about…”

 

“Talking about what?”

 

“Stiles”, Derek grumbled.

 

“Oh. Right. Yeah, okay, I can do that”, Scott said, even though he sounded unsure of himself.

 

“I’m just, I’m gonna go”, Derek said, and before Scott could say anything, he left.

 

*****

 

Derek tried walking around on the Preserve for quite a while, but it was pretty boring and lonely with no one from the pack to accompany him. So he decided to go into the city, and maybe buy some groceries.

 

*****

 

Derek blamed himself solely for this one. He should have seen the blue Jeep in the parking lot of the supermarket, but he was distracted by trying to remember what he would need to buy.

 

He should have picked up a smell, or a heartbeat, but even that didn’t happen.

 

So, Derek was halfway through his imaginary list when it happened. Well, it didn’t really happen. Actually, nothing really happened.

 

Derek rounded a corner and there he was.

 

Stiles was standing 20 feet away from him, supported by a pair of crutches. He still looked pretty messed up, although better than he did in the hospital.

 

Stiles, however, was blissfully unaware of Derek being so close. The reason for that was that he was currently smiling at a boy in a supermarket uniform, who was grabbing something for Stiles. This altogether wouldn’t be so weird, except for the fact that Stiles’ smile was almost dreamy, as if he was lost in thought, and…oh god, Derek had seen that smile before. Only it had always been aimed at him.

 

Derek spun around, speeding towards the cash register, deciding that he didn’t need the other half of his groceries after all, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

 

Stiles, still unaware of Derek ever being in the supermarket, accepted his Reese’s Peanut butter cups, and after giving the boy a terse smile, hobbled to the cash register.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [joyfuljaybird ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/joyfuljaybird) for proofreading!

They hadn’t seen each other for quite a while now. Well, technically, Derek had seen Stiles in the supermarket, but Derek was desperately trying to forget that encounter. So, they hadn’t seen each other for quite a while.

 

Derek still focussed on working out and the Bestiary like a maniac; he made sure he didn’t have a single free moment to let his mind wander, to think of things he shouldn’t be thinking about.

 

It turned out that this was easier said than done. Every evening his mind wandered, making it impossible for him to fall asleep, no matter how exhausted he was. The exhaustion was slowly getting to Derek, making him more irritable, more grumpy.

 

So, when Scott was supposed to help Derek with the Bestiary and still wasn’t there, Derek got fed up. Derek had already called him 3 times, sighing and grumbling each time Scott’s phone went to voicemail.

 

After 10 minutes and another attempt to get a hold of Scott, Derek gave up and decided to go to Scott’s house instead, hoping that Scott would be there so they could get this over with.

 

*****

 

When Derek arrived at Scott’s house, everything seemed normal. When he closed his car door, he heard some shuffling going on inside, so there was definitely someone home.

 

Derek knocked on the door and waited. He heard someone mumbling something to someone else, and then footsteps down the stairs. A second later Scott opened the door.

 

“Hey man, what are you doing here?”

 

Scott sounded weird, like he didn’t want Derek to be there, and there was a faint smell of salt, like someone had been crying, but Derek could see that it hadn’t been Scott.

 

“Bestiary”, Derek grunted in response.

 

“Oh, shit, I completely forgot about that, look, could we maybe do that some other time? I’m sort of in the middle of something.”

 

“Girlfriend trouble?” Derek asked.

 

“Hmm, what? Oh, no, it’s not…just, something”, Scott said hastily.

 

Derek raised an eyebrow at that.

 

“Look, can we please just do this another time? I really have no time right now. I will call you when I have time to meet up, but just, not right now.”

 

“Fine”, Derek grumbled, and he stalked to his car again.

 

*****

 

Not wanting to sit still for the rest of the day, Derek decided to fix the leaky tap, which had annoyed him for over a week now. After that was done, he decided to clean the rest of the house, just to keep himself busy. When he was cleaning the living room towards the beginning of the evening, Derek saw something sticking out from under the couch. Thinking it was a wrapper or something he had forgotten about, he pulled it from under the couch.

 

But it wasn’t a wrapper. It wasn’t even garbage. In his hands was Stiles’ red hoody. His favourite hoody, that he must have forgotten about when they had the fight. Maybe he hadn’t forgotten about it, but didn’t want to come pick it up. But what if he had forgotten about it? Maybe he was too happy with mystery supermarket-boy to realise his favourite hoody was missing.

 

Derek sat down on the couch, suddenly overwhelmed with thoughts he so desperately tried to avoid during the day.

 

He missed Stiles. Really missed him. Missed his smile, his quirky personality. Even missed the fact that he never seemed to sit still.

 

After a few minutes of reminiscing the thought of Stiles, a thought popped into Derek’s head.

 

Opening up his phone, he typed a message.

 

_“It was Stiles, wasn’t it?”_

 

He sent the message to Scott before he could change his mind.

 

It took another 15 minutes before he finally got a response.

 

_“Yes”_.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [joyfuljaybird ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/joyfuljaybird) for betareading! <3

_“Are you going to fix it?”_

 

The message Scott had send him the night before after confessing it was Stiles still rang loud and clear in Derek’s mind.

 

_“Yes”_ , he had texted Scott. Yes, because that was what he was planning. Fixing this mess they were all in.

 

But now that Derek was standing on the doorstep, Stiles’ hoody in his hand, he wasn’t so sure he would actually be welcome. So he just stood there for about five minutes, fidgeting with the hoody in his hand, thinking about what he was going to say, when the door opened.

 

John Stilinski stood inside, and raised an eyebrow when he saw who was standing outside.

 

Before Derek could say anything, or mumble an excuse or something, John sighed and held the door open for Derek to come in, before he turned around and went into the living room.

 

Derek wasn’t really sure what to do at first, so he just stood in the hallway for a moment, before collecting his thoughts and heading upstairs. When he passed the doorway to the living room, he looked inside and saw John, who gave him a slight nod, before he went back to his newspaper.

 

Derek slowly walked up the stairs, taking in everything he heard. He heard mostly Stiles mumbling angrily at himself, although he couldn’t really make out what he was mumbling.

 

When he was on the top of the stairs, in front of Stiles’ bedroom door, Derek hesitated again. What if he wasn’t welcome? What if he had read this all wrong? What if Stiles didn’t miss him at all?

 

‘No’, he grumbled to himself. ‘You will go through with this and fix this.’

 

Before he could start doubting himself again, he knocked on Stiles’ door.

 

“Yeah, dad, I will go outside, probably, at some point, it’s just…I need to finish this.”

 

Instead of answering, Derek knocked again.

 

“Oh my…what? I really don’t want to go outside right now and be confronted with all these happy….”, Stiles said, as he wrenched the door open.

 

Before, he could finish that sentence, he saw that who was standing in front of his door was decidedly not his father. Before Derek could say anything, Stiles tried to throw the door shut in his face with an undignified squeak.

 

Before he could close the door completely, Derek placed his hand that wasn’t holding the hoody against the door, and grunted “Stiles, we need to talk”.

 

Stiles wrenched open the door again, and looked at Derek with wide eyes, eyes that were slowly starting to water. “W-what?”

 

Derek realised his mistake. “No, th-that was not what I meant. I just, I wanted to, I have your hoody”, he ended up stuttering, thrusting Stiles’ hoody out to him.

 

“Oh.” Stiles sounded disappointed.

 

“And…I wanted…I mean…I miss you”, Derek almost whispered that last part.

 

“You miss me?” And yep, Stiles was definitely crying now, Derek had wanted to avoid this, how was he supposed to fix this?

 

“Y-yes.”

 

Then, all the air was knocked out of him when Stiles collided with Derek. He heard Stiles vaguely mumble “I hate you”, which made Derek tense up.

 

Stiles must have noticed Derek tensing up, because he said “I hate you, but god, I missed you.”

 

Derek let out of a sigh of relief. It took him a minute to realise they were both crying. Once he realised this, he slowly pushed Stiles towards his bed, hoody long forgotten, where he sat down and dragged Stiles down on top of him.

 

Stiles still hadn’t removed his face from the juncture in Derek’s neck.

 

“I’m so sorry, Stiles”, Derek mumbled softly into Stiles’ hair.

 

Stiles snuffled and slowly extracted himself from Derek’s neck, looking at Derek with watery eyes. “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ha-shouldn’t have told you to leave, in th-the hospital.”

 

“That’s okay, you were mad, I was mad, we were both mad at each other, I think we both needed some time.”

 

“But I don’t want any time anymore”, Stiles voice croaked through his tears.

 

“Me neither”, Derek whispered, and he held Stiles a little tighter.

 

After a few minutes of them just sitting on Stiles’ bed and not doing anything but holding each other tightly, afraid that if they would let go, they would lose each other, a cough came from somewhere near the door.

 

“If you are done making up”, John said, “I expect both of you downstairs in five, dinner’s ready.”

 

“Yes, dad”, Stiles said, while furiously blushing.

 

“Yes, sir”, Derek said, without looking at John.

 

What neither of them saw was that John was smiling when he walked away.


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small epilogue to end this story!
> 
> Thank you all for hanging in there with me!
> 
> And thanks to [joyfuljaybird ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/joyfuljaybird) for beta-reading everything! <3

It had been a few weeks since their…fallout. Everything was the way it used to be. Stiles came over again regularly, John invited Derek for dinner again, the pack was talking to both of them again without tiptoeing around everything. It was great.

 

Greater even when Derek woke up one morning with his arms tightly around someone’s waist, a face pressed in his neck. Derek slowly opened his eyes and smiled, putting his nose in Stiles’ hair and holding him a little tighter. Yes, everything was great.

 

After a few minutes, Derek felt Stiles begin to wake up. He felt Stiles sniffle softly in his neck, and felt his eyes open where his eyelashes tickled his skin.

 

Stiles slowly turned around and stared up at him. “Hey there”, he said with a voice still croaky from sleep.

 

“Hey there.”

 

Stiles smiled at him and slowly moved up, kissing Derek softly on the mouth. It was a short kiss, just a little peck, but it made something inside Derek burst with love for Stiles.

 

When they broke apart, both were smiling. Stiles snuggled into Derek’s neck again, seemingly happy with this setting.

 

“Do you want something to eat?” Derek whispered in Stiles hair.

 

“Don’t wanna move”, Stiles mumbled. However, after he said this, his stomach immediately started to grumble. “Okay, yeah, maybe I could eat something”, he said with a chuckle.

 

“Okay, don’t move, I’ll be right back”, Derek stated, and with one last kiss on Stiles’ forehead he got out of bed…

 

Only to fall flat on his face with a grunt.

 

“Ow, what the hell?!”

 

Stiles slowly shuffled closer to the edge to see what was going on, only to see Derek lay on the floor, where he apparently tripped over one of Stiles shoes.

 

Remembering a few weeks ago, Stiles got out of bed as fast as he could, eyes wide, and starting putting his shoe and other stuff that was still scattered across the floor. “I’m so sorry, I will clean this up, I swear, I just…”

 

Before he could finish his sentence, Derek’s lips were on his, silencing him.

 

“Don’t worry about it.”

 

Derek kissed Stiles again, and he dropped the shoe he was holding.

 

“Okay”, he sighed happily.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr: [queenofwrecksandruins ](http://queenofwrecksandruins.tumblr.com/)


End file.
